


Treasures of Lost Gallifrey

by scrivenette



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Broken TARDIS, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Team TARDIS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:42:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24890266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrivenette/pseuds/scrivenette
Summary: The Ninth Doctor, Jack, and Rose stop in a trade and resort town. During a shopping expedition, the Doctor finds something extraordinary, something rare, something that makes him very, very angry. What follows is a new, deeper understanding between Nine and Jack. And Jack develops a whole new understanding of his place with the Doctor and with Rose.
Relationships: Ninth Doctor & Rose Tyler, Ninth Doctor & a TARDIS, Ninth Doctor/Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	Treasures of Lost Gallifrey

**Author's Note:**

> I originally published this story on A Teaspoon and An Open Mind in 2007. It appears here now, slightly edited from that original. I had started the idea as an Original Ninth Doctor/Jack piece and realized that the physical stuff would get in the way of exploring the relationship. Rose isn't exactly incidental to the story; she's there, but not as central as I originally intended either. I hope you dig it.

Captain Jack Harkness closed his eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling air rich with spices sharp as chili powder, touched with a vague echo of cinnamon. He opened his eyes and surveyed the market street. Palla City was everything the Doctor had promised, sun-drenched and exotic, its markets draped with fabrics and goods from a hundred different worlds. The street was a riot of color. Music danced on the air from markets stalls on either side. The Doctor had promised Jack and Rose a feast later on; Jack's mouth was already watering.

Rose was in the spirit of things, bartering exotic and valuable Earth plastics for, among other things, a strip of shimmering pink ribbon that she'd already tied around her head. Her currency included banana-shaped hair clips, chop sticks, and cheap fast food joint trinkets. She had a couple of action figures she was saving for something extra special. At the moment, she was haggling passionately with an orange-skinned matron draped in green over the value of an embroidered, deep blue shirt that she'd decided Jack had to have. He watched in amusement as she beat down the woman's price, insisting the shirt, no matter how pretty, was really worth only two Happy Meal toys rather than five. Jack had examined the workmanship on the thing and was certain that no matter how much Rose paid for it, she was getting a bargain. He was looking forward to wearing it mainly to drive her crazy. He enjoyed watching her watch him almost as much as he enjoyed the attention himself.

Down the street, perhaps four stalls away, Jack could see the only patch of black in the whole market: the Doctor's leather jacket. The Doctor stood, long and lean, his back to the street, where he'd been for the last twenty minutes or so. Jack wondered what had captured his attention.

"Done!" said Rose. Jack glanced at her. She wore a triumphant smile as she handed over three toys, took the shirt from the woman, and stuffed it into a woven straw tote she'd bought earlier in the day. He grinned at her obvious pleasure.

"Where? Tell me now, not later, now!" roared a familiar voice. Jack turned back to the street. He saw the Doctor step deeper into the stall. He knew that sound in the Doctor’s voice.

"Rose, come on," Jack said, grabbing her hand and pushing through the throng. 

"Where did you get these? Who sold them to you?" the Doctor demanded.

When Jack and Rose reached the stall, they found the Doctor standing over a short, fat orange man cowering in the corner. The Doctor clutched something in each hand; Jack couldn't tell what.

"I cannot divulge my sources, sir. I have commercial considerations to think about!" the man said indignantly. His voice wasn't steady but his resolve was. "And will not be treated like this—there are laws on this planet! Someone call the guard!" he yelled.

Jack was impressed. He'd never been on the business end of the Doctor's wrath, but he’d certainly seen it before. He didn't imagine he could keep his composure as effectively as this green merchant.

"Commercial considerations be damned!" the Doctor said quietly. Menace filled the air. He stepped right up to the man and held out his hands. In each palm, he held two glittering objects, each a different color with wires and knobs on them. "Now, I'm asking you for the last time," he said. "This is Time Lord technology. Where did you find it?"

The man paused, and Jack thought he was considering his options. Finally, he said, "There's a merchant comes through every moon cycle." Sweat beaded on his brow. "I don't ask where he gets his stock. I just buy what I know will sell. There are collectors, you know. Like yourself."

"I'm no collector, and there's no one like me. Not anymore." The Doctor stood and put the items in his pockets. "When is this merchant due here again? I want to have a word with him."

"Three days, maybe four."

"I'll be back."

The Doctor turned on his heel and ran right into Jack. "Come on, we're going." He pushed past Jack and Rose into the crowd.

“Thief!” yelled the merchant. “Stop! Thief!”

Rose threw an action figure at the merchant. "Doctor, wait!" she called. She disentangled her hand from Jack's and ran after the Doctor. Jack took off behind them.

###

Jack jogged the last three steps into the TARDIS and shut the door behind him.

"They don't know what they're doing," the Doctor said as he strode around the console, pushing a pump, spinning a wheel, setting a dial. Rose was staying out of the Doctor's way. He was moving full bore, and would trample anyone who got in his path.

"What are you doing? Where are we going?" Jack asked as he approached the console. In the back of his mind, a voice protested, wanting that promised feast, wanting the dessert he'd imagined in his mind's eye: some Doctor, with a little Rose on the side. Of course, that had been the fantasy from day one. Neither of them had been immune to Jack's charm, but there'd been no right opportunity to cash in on same.

"We're going three days forward."

The time rotor lurched to life and the TARDIS began to cycle.

"Doctor, what are those things?" Rose asked.

"Vortex channels," the Doctor said. He concentrated on the screen, making small adjustments as the TARDIS revved up. "Every TARDIS has twelve Vortex channels. We can't travel through time without them; the Vortex would become unstable, and we'd become unstuck in time, like your author Vonnegut called it. They help keep us on track, allow us to come back to stable time. But you can't just pull these things out of thin air. And you can't find them without having found another TARDIS, which means someone's cannibalizing a living thing and they don't even know it."

"Could these have been spares? Maybe someone's found a TARDIS garage," Jack suggested, not entirely seriously.

"Oh, that's possible. Anything's possible. But three of these are fake; only one's real. So whoever's selling these things obviously has originals. And whoever's selling them knows what he's got, and knows their value." The Doctor looked up at Jack; the gaze pierced through him, intense, angry, grief stricken. "He's making money off of the ashes of my people, off the ashes of Gallifrey."

"We've got to find him," Rose said.

The Doctor turned his gaze to Rose. "We will."

###

They arrived three hours before dawn. There was no precision with the TARDIS, or very little, and rarely when it was wanted. So they had to wait.

The Doctor stood in the doorway, leaning on the doorframe, looking out over Palla City. Jack leaned against the console, watching the Doctor.

Rose had succumbed to sleep on the jump seat only an hour before. Jack smiled, remembering her trying valiantly not to nod off. When her breathing became deep and even, Jack had lifted her gently and taken her to her room so she could sleep properly. He'd been watching the Doctor ever since.

The man hadn't moved. Hadn't said a word.

The Doctor never resorted to violence, never lifted a hand to someone else, never used a gun, always found a way to deal with a situation with his head, not his fists. Now, the Doctor's stillness spoke louder than any violence might. Jack could see the tension in him, how square and hard his shoulders were.

"It rises eventually," Jack finally said.

No response.

"The sun. You know: the planet turns, the light spreads..."

"I know." The Doctor turned his head just enough so that Jack could see his profile. Not for the first time did he find himself thinking of the faces of ancient sculptures and Roman coins. The man was beautiful; did he have any idea?

Jack walked to the Doctor, giving the Doctor ample notice of his approach. Jack put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Then relax. You can't make the planet move any faster." 

The Doctor worked his jaw. Said nothing. 

"How about some tea?" Jack said. "A watched sun never rises."

The Doctor's lips quirked at that. He looked out the doorway again, and then back at Jack.

"None of that artificial sweetener, though," he said. "Burns me mouth."

###

Once the market opened, Jack stationed himself in the stall opposite the collectible seller's. The green-skinned merchant’s shop was fully stocked, and he was haggling away with a customer as though nothing had happened the day before. But he glanced occasionally at the Doctor, who stood perusing the wares on the table just like any other customer. The merchant’s movements were like a bird’s, quick little flicks and twitches—nerves, for sure. The action figure had a place of honor not on the tables but in a glass case where other valuable things were displayed. Jack saw no trace of vortex channels among the wares. Apparently, the merchant had decided he’d gotten value for the vortex channels the Doctor had taken.

Rose was stationed on the other side of the stall. 

People came and went. But when a tall, thin, red-haired woman walking with a cane and wearing a sort of backpack entered the stall, there was a change in the merchant's body language. The Doctor and Rose, each in turn, glanced at Jack. He nodded, noting that the other day, the merchant had referred to this person as a "he." Interesting. A disguise? A metamorph of some kind?

Rose stepped out of the stall to one side. Jack strolled over, put his arm around Rose's waist, and said, "Find anything interesting, honey?"

The woman went directly to the merchant and swung her pack off of her shoulder onto a chair. The green man looked around nervously, then said, "And what have you for me today, Ednor?"

As Rose pointed out a brightly painted plate, Jack tried to listen to the murmured conversation at the back of the stall. They were apparently haggling over unseen items inside the pack, but Jack couldn't make out discrete words. 

The woman, Ednor, was there 15 minutes or so, perhaps a little longer. When she and the merchant came to an agreement on price, they shook hands, then she emptied her bag into a basket he held out for her. Jack saw the telltale glitter of what looked like vortex channels, several by the sound of their cascading into the basket. He glanced at the Doctor, who had a better vantage point, and the Doctor nodded.

When Ednor was done, she hoisted her pack over her shoulder and turned to go. They let the woman pass between them, through the stall and out into the crowd. Jack, Rose and the Doctor followed.

###

They followed her for the next two hours. She went from stall to stall, making deals with local merchants. At the fourth stall--filled with colorful bolts of fabric and pillows of every size and shape--she stopped merely to chat with the four-armed humanoid tradesman, not to do business. Jack couldn't hear the conversation. She then handed her bag to the merchant, and ducked into a back chamber of the tent.

This was bad. They couldn't let her out of their sight. Jack and the Doctor exchanged a wordless glance: we've got to split up. The Doctor nodded. Jack took off.

Out of the stall, he turned the corner and dove between the curtains that covered the space between the stall he'd been in and the one directly behind it. He saw no one, but he also saw one curtain further down the fabric corridor billow and relax. He ran toward it, pulled it aside, and found himself in the back of a fruit stand. Ednor was nowhere to be seen.

###

The three of them sat in a cafe across from the stall where Ednor had disappeared, each munching on a skewer of spiced meat and sharing a large bowl of roasted vegetables drenched in a salty marinade. It was an easy way to monitor the stall if she decided to return--that was Jack's justification anyway. They were all famished.

"While you were off chasing Ednor, we questioned the merchant," the Doctor said. "Seems this Ednor goes by several names—Melkin, Terez, Odemi. And the bag she left was empty."

"That leaves us with no leads," Jack said. So much for surveillance, for all the good it would do them.

"Not exactly," the Doctor said, and bit a small chunk of meat off his skewer. When he was done chewing--he chews with distinction, Jack thought, just like everything else he does--he went on. "I scanned the bag. It had traces of Vortex particles, which confirms we're on the right track. But it also contains exhaust particles, and not just any exhaust particles: retin exhaust."

Jack picked up the thread immediately. "But you only get retin exhaust off of retinon drives," Jack said. He figured it out as he spoke, and felt his own blood beginning to pump with excitement. "That means Ednor's got a ship, a transport, an old one if it's got a retinon drive." Jack relished the thought of getting to see one of those babies up close.

"What's a retinon drive?" Rose asked. Jack couldn't help but sympathize. Every now and then he and the Doctor just sort of took off without her conversationally, not because they meant to, but because they simply had more experience than she did. He knew she'd catch up in time. In the meanwhile, the Doctor was explaining.

"Retinon drives were the hotrod engines of the last years of the Sargain Imperium. They were the muscle cars of their time. But like muscle cars they were fuel guzzlers, and they left behind a lot of exhaust and fumes. After a while, they went out of vogue in favor of more efficient engines. But there are collectors who still keep them, and apparently this Ednor is one of them."

"So where ever we find a ship with a retinon drive..." Rose began.

"We find Ednor," Jack finished.

###

The smell, Jack thought, was unparalleled. If the market had smelled sweet and sharp and heady, the Palla City space port was its exact opposite: sour, acrid, and poisonous. The stench of fuel was overwhelming. And they were still inside the blocky, unadorned concrete terminal. The place was prison-like, and Jack wondered how such a thriving tourist destination could have such an ugly, industrial port. It reminded him of Eastern European Brutalist architecture on Earth.

"This is the working port," the Doctor said. "Nothing needed here but flat floors to roll pallets of goods across."

Jack and the Doctor turned toward the exit to the tarmac, when Rose asked, "Where are you going?"

"We're going to find the ship," the Doctor said.

"We could, you know, ask," Rose said, cocking a thumb toward a counter. "You said every ship had to register."

Jack and the Doctor looked at her blankly.

"You're such men," she said, "never asking for directions."

She turned away from them and flounced over to the registration desk. Jack couldn't help but admire the view. The girl moved with such a bouncy grace. He glanced at the Doctor, who watched Rose with an altogether different expression: a half smile settled on his lips, but a faraway look in his blue eyes. Jack was going to have to do something about the two of them at some point.

After Jack had met the Doctor and Rose, and they'd flown off together in the TARDIS, he'd been pretty certain that one or both of them would find their way into his bed--with his assistance--fairly soon. What he hadn't counted on was the fact that though they were both attracted to him, they were head-over-heels for each other. This made them single-minded and altogether far more attractive than he'd anticipated. And the truth was, he was kind of in love with them both: smart, brave, principled people with a taste for adventure, not to mention easy on the eyes. He'd never spent quite so much time just _admiring_ people rather than physically expressing admiration. And boy, did he want to express himself.

But the Doctor, Jack soon discovered, had a level of survivor's guilt that kept him from following his desires where Rose was concerned. And Rose, he discovered, though assertive and cheeky, wasn't going to make the first move. Jack understood what she understood: that part of the Doctor's healing process would be to make a move on his own behalf, to let himself act on his emotions and desires and to believe he was worthy of what he received in return. Jack had a sense that the process had begun as he'd watched the two of them dance in the console room that first night he was aboard the TARDIS. A light seemed to infuse the Doctor that night, a light that had burned brightly until they came to Palla City.

Jack knew that the only way to revive that light was to see this thing through, and to make sure at the end of it, that the Doctor got some sort of affirmation that he'd done good, he'd done right, he was worthy of his people's legacy, and of the love that both Jack and Rose felt for him.

Rose came back with a scrap of flimsy metal. "The woman gave me this. Said it was the location of the ship we're looking for." She handed the note to the Doctor, and Jack looked over his shoulder at it: a string of numbers and letters indicating a ship berth.

They all turned and headed for the tarmac without a word.

###

Jack followed the Doctor out to the tarmac where rows of small private ships sat in the orange, late afternoon sun. Small, of course, was a relative term. No ship here was smaller than a house. Many of them showed signs of wear: white ships with black or green panels where damage had been repaired, gray metal boats with scorched streaks that told of chases and battles. As a kid, Jack had built models of private star ships. Walking through the yard was like a walk through a toy store. He couldn't help grinning.

Even as he enjoyed the scenery, absently cataloguing the ships they passed, he was alert, watching for unexpected assaults. He was used to that sort of multitasking, and had a knack for it that he suspected he'd learned during his two lost years.

Rose and the Doctor walked just a little ahead, the two of them walking in tandem as though their movements were programmed to each other, even though the Doctor's legs were longer than hers. Another reason for Jack to smile. Nice view.

The Doctor stopped a moment, consulted the note that Rose had gotten from the port registrar, walked back a few steps, looked at the docking numbers painted on the tarmac, then stepped between two ships. Jack and Rose followed as he passed between the two behemoths which, from below, looking like seafaring vessels--rounded bellies drooping toward the ground--except for the thick legs of the landing gear upon which they perched. When they came out into the next aisle of ships, the Doctor turned right and walked past two more ships before stopping.

The ship before them was silver, all clean and graceful, swooping up into lines meant to slice through an atmosphere. What's not to love, Jack thought, peering up at the piercing nose of the cockpit in admiration. He could smell the retin on the air. This had to be the ship. A Xantine 9? No, a 9-A--look at the truncated curve of the wings....

"Oi!" the Doctor called. "Pay attention. We've got work to do."

Jack glanced guiltily at the Doctor, embarrassed to be caught off guard.

"So," he said when he recovered, pushing his hands into his pockets and looking back up at the Doctor, all business, "what's the plan?"

"The plan is that we knock on the door," the Doctor said.

"Which would be where, exactly?" Rose asked, looking up along the length of the vessel.

"This way," the Doctor said, and approached one of the landing supports, a thick slanted column with a sort of disc-shaped foot and a glossy black panel mounted at about the Doctor's shoulder height. The Doctor put his palm on the panel and removed it. A green image of his hand remained a moment and then disappeared.

"State your business," a voice of indeterminate gender said from an unseen speaker.

"I'm in the market for Time Lord technology and I was told you were the one to see." 

"Hold," said the voice. "Stand clear."

The Doctor stepped back. In a moment, a buzz sounded from the belly of the ship and a hatch began to lower itself. Jack and Rose moved to stand with the Doctor.

"That was a little too easy," he said quietly. Jack nodded.

When the end of the ramp settled onto the tarmac, a chubby little man came trundling down, rubbing his hands together with a guarded expression on his strangely smooth features. He was bald and wore a mushy caftan plain of cut that reached the floor.

"Welcome, welcome," he said. He held out his hand. The Doctor shook it. The man didn't offer his hand to Rose or Jack, which Jack thought a little odd but didn't pursue it. "My mistress asks that I see you to her parlor." He swept out his hand, indicating that they enter the ship.

The Doctor glanced at Jack--keep your eyes open--and then headed up the loading ramp. They emerged into a small cargo hold filled with unadorned metal containers and a couple of wooden crates. Nothing was labeled, Jack noticed. He also noticed the Doctor lift his chin as he looked around, as though sensing something, though Jack couldn't tell what.

The little man walked past them to lead them through the room and up a narrow companionway. At the top of the stairs, he walked past two hatches to a third on the right side and motioned for them to enter.

"Please make yourselves comfortable. My mistress will see you shortly," he said with an odd smile, and left as soon as he saw them move into the room. A door slid shut behind them.

The chamber was small with four black, deeply padded seats bolted to the floor arranged around a low table. The walls were lined with shelves stacked with books and small boxes, odd figurines and statues. Rose immediately began to peruse the shelves. The Doctor walked to the other side of the room, leaned against the wall, and folded his arms, facing the door. Jack stationed himself halfway between the door and the Doctor.

"Are you sensing anything?" Jack asked. "Can you feel a TARDIS here?"

"No, but that doesn't mean anything. This ship isn't just a hotrod. It's got a psychic dampening field so strong that I can't feel anything, not the servant, not the host, neither of you." Rose turned to the Doctor at that comment; he looked away. Jack glanced at the Doctor and then Rose. It had been unspoken, somehow, that the Doctor might be able to hear their thoughts. Unnerving to hear it from his lips so bluntly. "Don't worry," the Doctor went on. "It's not like I can read your minds or anything, not when I'm not touching you and trying. I can just feel your presence is all, the echoes of emotions. But I can't feel anything here." He looked dismayed and not a little angry.

They heard footsteps beyond the hatch, uneven by the sound, and the click of a cane against the deck. The Doctor stood up straight. Jack turned toward the door. 

The tall, striking red head they'd seen earlier, Ednor, wearing a long, shimmering green sheath, entered the room. Upon closer examination, she was older than Jack expected, with fine lines around her mouth and eyes, and a slight looseness in her high cheeks. "How do you do? My name is Ednor Terez-Nah. And you are?"

She held out her hand to Jack. She had a husky voice full of secrets. Jack was immediately on guard: it takes a con man to know a con man. He gave her his most winning smile and took her hand. "Captain Jack Harkness."

"Jack..." the Doctor warned.

Jack raised his hands and stepped back. "Just saying hello."

"And who is this charming young thing?" She took a step toward Rose with her hand stuck out.

Rose took it, but did so reluctantly.

"Rose Tyler," she said. "Nice to meet you." Rose's tone wasn't quite so definite, however. Something about the woman made her uncomfortable. Jack examined Ednor more closely. She did seem odd, but he couldn't figure out why.

“From Earth, I see,” said Ednor. “What a wealth of stories you must have.” She turned to the Doctor. "And you are...?"

"I'm the Doctor," he said.

Ednor nodded ever so slightly. "I’ve heard stories of a Time Lord called The Doctor. Intriguing to meet the legend in the flesh.” She paused a moment, shifted on her feet. “My servant Melkin tells me you're in the market for Vortex channels," she said. "They're a rare commodity since the Time War ended, treasures of a lost civilization. They cost a considerable sum."

"What do you know about the Time War?" the Doctor asked. Jack recognized the look on the Doctor's face, a barely concealed rage simmered just beneath the surface.

Ednor spread her hands, one clutching the cane, the other palm up. She smiled, not unkindly. "Only what everyone knows: that the daleks and the Time Lords destroyed each other. That region of space will be poisoned for a thousand years with all the fallout, the asteroid field, and gases. Beautiful remains of a vanished world, but deadly to any who go there."

"If it's so dangerous, where do you get your stock?"

"Here and there. The Time Lords left remnants all over space and time, if one knows where to look."

"And how do you know where to look?" the Doctor asked.

Ednor's smile changed from benign to sly. "Ah, now you're asking for trade secrets and business intelligence. I'm afraid I can't share that with you. I'll be happy to sell you anything in my stock that interests you, however."

The Doctor walked around the chairs and table to stand only a foot from the woman. They were of a height, nearly nose to nose.

"I'm going to ask you again, just once. Where are you getting the Vortex channels?"

Ednor faltered only for a moment, her smile flickering. "I . . . I have a TARDIS. It's old and damaged, probably in the war." She stepped back away from him toward the door. "It barely functions. It's just a shell, really, good for nothing more than scrap."

"Where?" the Doctor asked, nearly a whisper. Jack poised himself to jump between them if he needed to. This woman didn't realize exactly how much danger she was in. Rose stepped forward as well, ready to put a calming hand on the Doctor's arm.

Ednor glanced to one side as though looking for assistance. She was clearly nervous now; she knew she was in trouble. The servant was apparently elsewhere.

"In . . . in the cargo hold. Its chameleon circuit made one more transformation before it gave out."

And then Ednor's body, just for a moment, seemed to wobble, almost as though Jack were looking at it through rippled glass. She smiled nervously. 

"You're losing control," the Doctor said.

"Losing control? What do you mean?" Rose asked.

Never once moving his gaze away from Ednor, the Doctor said, "Rose, Jack, you're looking at a true shape-changer, a Daridian. That's why there's a dampening field in this ship. Daridians give off a specific psychic signature. I couldn't feel it in the market because there were too many people around. Humans give off psychic fields, too. But anyone who comes to this ship to do business might be able to sense a Daridian, so this one's created a defense. But the psychic field isn't why they're special, oh, no. Anything they touch they can imitate. They can take infinite form--as long as the form has more-or-less the same mass as the Daridian original. I'd bet good money that she and her servant are the same creature."

"That's a bet you'd win," Ednor said. Jack wanted to wipe that smug expression off of her face.

"Doctor, she touched us all," Rose said, grave and quiet. "We took her hand. We all touched her."

"There's no undoing that now," Ednor said, and transformed before their eyes, her body rippling beneath her sheath, shrinking slightly and reforming. Suddenly Jack was looking at another Rose in Ednor's green dress, only over her body, it clung seductively around her curves and pooled at her feet as a result of her shorter stature. In any other situation, Jack would have been enthralled. Now he was repulsed. "It's a handy tool in my business." Rose's voice, emotionless and detached, emerged from the replica.

The Doctor grabbed Ednor’s arm. She tried to wrench away and failed. "That face isn't yours,” he said. “Change back."

Ednor smiled, and Jack winced as he instinctively responded to this imitation Rose's smile. "All these faces are mine," she said, and though her body didn't change, Jack watched in horrified fascination as her face underwent a fluid transformation from Rose's smooth-skinned prettiness to Ednor's older, angular features. From there her face morphed into Melkin's and from there into Jack's own, which made him queasy. Then Ednor's entire body rippled and reorganized until they were looking at a duplicate Doctor in a green dress. It would have been comical if it hadn't been so repugnant.

"Useful," she said in the Doctor’s voice.

"For a trader who deals in fakes and makes money on corpses," the Doctor answered.

"Who _doesn't_ deal in fakes and corpses of one sort or another? No one is innocent. Especially a Time Lord who survived the Time War." The Doctor blanched but he didn't let go of her arm. Jack had an idea of the effect such a remark would have on the Doctor. "You're the only one, aren't you? Otherwise you wouldn't care so much about my TARDIS. Have you lost yours? Has it died?" She leered as she asked those last questions.

"How did you know?" Rose asked.

"When she touched us, she picked up basic genetic information," Jack said. "Of course she'd know."

Ednor smiled again, and Jack was suddenly filled with a murderous rage. "Change back. You don't have the right to wear our faces," he said.

"But she will do," the Doctor said. "Jack. Cuffs."

Jack pulled out his cuffs and placed one on Ednor's wrist, the other on his own. "You don't go farther than 10 feet from me or you'll have an electrifying experience. To the tune of ten thousand volts." Ednor looked at him without blinking. Jack averted his gaze; it was unnerving, seeing someone else behind the Doctor's eyes.

"Now, let's go find this TARDIS." 

The Doctor strode out of the room. Jack, Ednor and Rose followed.

###

The cargo hold, from this perspective, was smaller than it seemed on first entering. The Doctor stalked around the room twice and then: "I can't feel it!" he cried out.

He walked to Ednor, who stood by Jack and actually recoiled as the Doctor approached. Face to face with himself, the Doctor didn't flinch. Jack wasn't sure he could maintain his composure so completely under the same circumstances. "Where is it? I'm only going to ask you once. If you don't tell me, it's off to the bridge, where you'll turn off that dampering field. I'll be able to feel the TARDIS and you'll be able to feel me. And trust me, you don't want to feel what I'm feeling right now."

Ednor transformed into herself again, and the way she shuddered as she did it, Jack decided that it wasn't a deliberate transformation; it was nerves. "Over there," she said, pointing at a large, silver, metal barrel as tall as the Doctor himself.

The Doctor strode over to the barrel; they all followed, Jack and Rose both in awe. Another TARDIS--even having seen one in a lifetime was a wonder. The opportunity to see another was something neither of them had ever dreamed of.

The Doctor put his hand on the barrel, gently first, fingertips only, then spread his hand on its surface. He caressed the TARDIS, and then ran his hand along a horizontal seam. Suddenly, he pushed in a door. Jack would never have known it was there. He peeked beyond the Doctor's shoulder. The inside was shrouded in shadow. The Doctor ducked inside. Jack, Rose, and Ednor followed.

As his eyes adjusted, Jack realized that there _was_ light inside, the last embers of a fire that had once burned brightly. As he became accustomed to the gloom, he realized that this TARDIS looked nothing like the Doctor's pulsing, organic ship. Though there was a center console, a time rotor, rondelles on the walls, and a jump seat, the style was all hard edges and shades of blue. The lines were graceful but very precise and artificial. The console was a pale blue and hexagonal, with a molded edge. The jump seat was a padded bench, covered in purple white fabric, threadbare around the edges. 

The Doctor's TARDIS always vibrated with the thrum of its life. Inside this TARDIS, the near-silence was chilling. Jack could feel a slight, herky trembling every now and then, but there was no rumble of life, no bouyancy, no power.

The Doctor walked over to the console and placed his hands along the edge. He moaned, then crouched close to the control panel. "I can feel you now," he said softly, as though soothing a child. He caressed the fluted edge, leaned his cheek against it. "I can feel you," he said again, his eyes closed. 

He stayed there. After a while, Jack began to feel uncomfortable, as though he were watching something too intimate to be shared. He shifted on his feet, and then felt Rose sneak a hand into his. "Maybe we should leave him to it," she whispered.

"No. Stay," the Doctor said. He looked up from where he crouched. "Please."

"I won't stay," Ednor said. Jack had almost forgotten about her, standing there with them. "You're making such a fuss over nothing."

“Shut up," Jack said before anyone else could respond. "I don't want to hear your voice again."

"Shall I test this cuff?" she asked, lifting her wrist and letting the spare light play over the metal bracelet.

"You're the only one who'll suffer if you do," Jack said, "but be my guest." He swept one hand toward the door and hoped that she'd try it. Ednor took two steps in that direction, glanced at it, then the cuff, and hesitated. "Not so brave now, are you?" Jack said.

"Jack," the Doctor said. Jack turned to him. "I don't want her here for this. She can't be here. Take her outside."

Jack nodded. If what was passing between the Doctor and this TARDIS was almost too intimate for Jack himself to witness, he understood that it was nothing the Doctor wanted to share with Ednor. He wondered if, since it seemed as though the dampening field didn't affect things inside the TARDIS, the Doctor could feel Ednor in the air here. The Doctor clearly didn't want to be distracted, and he didn't want this communion with the TARDIS to be sullied by her presence. As much as Jack wanted to stay, he knew he had to take this interloper away from the scene. Rose would take care of the Doctor, whatever occurred. He grabbed Ednor's wrist none too gently and they left. 

Back in the cargo hold, the air felt different, and Jack realized that it wasn't just that he could no longer feel the TARDIS around them, but that he could distinguish the sensation of the dampening field. After being inside the TARDIS, he felt as though he was wrapped in cotton. He'd never been psychically sensitive and didn't think he was starting now. But the contrast in the atmosphere was so strong he didn't think anyone could have missed it.

"Quite the bleeding heart, your Doctor," Ednor said as she seated herself on a wooden crate, pulling Jack from his reverie. She crossed her legs and asked casually, "Where'd you pick him up?"

It took Jack just two steps to stand directly in front of and above Ednor. He wanted her to feel small, to feel powerless. "I told you I didn't want to hear your voice again."

"Whose voice would you like?" Ednor said, smiling venomously. She changed into the Doctor. "You seem to like this voice." She wasn't just a shapeshifter; apparently she was also a mimic, for her voice had deepened to the Doctor's baritone. She rose and stood too close for comfort. Jack took a step back. "You take commands from this one. Does he own you? Do you _like_ to be pushed around?" She stepped toward him. "I can push you around just as well." She shoved him in the chest. He grabbed her wrist, and twisted her arm.

"Stop it," he hissed. 

She winced, but she didn't back down. "Why?" she asked. "I've got nothing to lose, now. You're not going to let me go. Your Doctor's in there either saving that TARDIS or killing it, so beyond a certain point my special stock in trade is gone. Now that I can look like any one of you, you'll chase me across the galaxy until you stop me. So I figure I'll end up your prisoner or implicated somehow in some crime you'll trump up. I'll end up in a prison in Palla City. You can't let me go free."

Jack glanced around the cargo hold. He needed something to gag her with, a rope or a rag. What he felt rising inside himself was a dangerous thing, and Ednor was fanning its flames. He had to find a way to shut her up, but he saw nothing he could immediately use. The cargo hold was devoid of anything but crates and barrels. If nothing else, Ednor ran a tight, tidy ship.

"Maybe, you'd like this one better," she said. She shifted again, once again taking Rose's form. Jack stepped back. "I've seen how you look at her." She tilted her head, ran her fingers down her cleavage. Jack kept his eyes on her face--Rose's face. "You want her. You want them both, don't you? Ambitious. I like that." She smiled wickedly. Jack resisted the urge to smack her. 

He pushed her back to the crate she'd been sitting on and forced her down. "We can prove you've been trading in counterfeit goods. We don't have to trump up anything to get you arrested on that charge."

"And that carries the death penalty here; did you know that? On a planet where trade is all, the worst thing you can do is cheat a customer. Rape, extortion, murder--somehow here, they don't hold a candle to ... " She thought for a moment, then laughed. "They don't hold a candle to dishonesty. Such a little crime elsewhere. One you're committing yourself right now." 

That caught Jack off guard, and he must have let it show on his face.

"Oh, don't be so naive," she said. "You've been a commander of men but you present yourself as harmless and affable. You're a soldier, but here you are following a rogue Time Lord and a child. You must want them badly." She stood up again, and ran her hands down her breasts, Rose's breasts. "You could have them both. In me. If you let me go."

It took all of Jack's self control for him not to throttle the shapechanger in that moment. She was perceptive; it was true. Either that or more information was shared via touch than he might have realized. She was also right about at least one thing: they could never let her go. This performance was proof positive of that. She could be any one of them, and in that guise do anything. It occurred to Jack that a conventional prison wouldn't be able to hold her for long. All she'd have to do was touch one guard at some strategic moment, and she'd have her pass to freedom. 

It occurred to him that there was only one way to ensure she never imitated any of them again.

He pushed the thought away.

The door of the TARDIS opened. Rose came out looking ragged. Her face was streaked with tears. Jack stepped up to her and touched her cheek, wiping away some of the wet. She took his hand.

"What's happening?" he asked quietly, disarmed by her appearance.

"This TARDIS is dead," she said. Ednor exhaled in a way that sounded exasperated. "I'll tell you about it later," Rose went on. "I can't now..." She glanced past Jack at Ednor. When she looked back at him, her eyes met his. She wouldn't talk in the shapeshifter's presence. He nodded.

"The Doctor?" he asked.

"He's a mess. We’ve got to get back to our TARDIS. What are we going to do about her?"

Jack glanced at Ednor, and then turned back to Rose. She suddenly seemed rare, like some previous jewel that should be stored away where no one could touch it, cut it into a different shape. Something inside him shifted, as though his internal landscape was shaken by an earthquake with an epicenter somewhere south of his heart. 

Some things were unavoidable: love, regret, conscience. Death.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. 

###

Jack’s composure nearly broke when the Doctor and Rose emerged from the dead TARDIS. The Doctor had one arm draped over Rose’s shoulders; she had one arm around his waist, holding him up as they negotiated the doorway. The Doctor looked as though he’d run a marathon, weak and drawn, his face wet with sweat and possibly tears, though Jack couldn’t tell for sure. The Doctor tripped as he came through, staggering, and Jack rushed to his other side and grabbed him, supporting him. He exchanged a glance with Rose asking, silently, _Are you sure you can do this?_ She nodded without a word.

Once they were standing and stable again, Jack said softly, “I’ll see you back at the TARDIS.” The Doctor lifted hooded eyes to him and nodded. He and Rose limped slowly across the cargo hold, down the ramp and out of the ship. Jack watched them go, hands on his hips. He rubbed one cheek and realized that it was wet from contact with the Doctor’s face.

“You’ll take care of it?” Rose’s voice from behind him. Right. Ednor. Unfinished business. He steeled himself before he turned around, ready to face this counterfeit Rose and what was yet to come.

He turned.

“What exactly is it that you’re planning to do?” she asked, tilting her head and smiling sweetly. 

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her up. “Come on,” he said. He pulled her along behind him as he pushed open the door of the TARDIS and pulled her into the darkness. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, sounding a little more alarmed. She resisted his pull; he tugged harder. “I don’t want to go in here.”

“You didn’t mind it before,” he said, “when you were killing her by inches.”

“Let me go,” she said, twisting in his grasp. He tightened his grip on her, then pulled her around to push her up against the TARDIS console in the thin sliver of light streaming in from the doorway.

“Let you go? So you can steal and cheat people with my face? With Rose’s? With the Doctor’s? I don’t think so.”

Ednor transformed back into the Doctor again, which put her at a slight advantage in terms of height. Jack’s stomach lurched. Every time Ednor changed, that unnerving ripple pulsed through her; this time he felt it happen as he gripped her wrist, like a snake wriggling in his grasp. In the back of his mind, he wondered if, with the change, she gained some of the Doctor’s strength advantage along with his height.

“Try and stop me,” Ednor said with the Doctor’s voice and, with her free hand, drove a fist toward Jack’s face. 

Without thinking about it, he released her and stepped back to dodge the blow. So that was how it was going to be. He shouldn’t have expected anything else.

Ednor side-stepped and tried to run. She looked like the Doctor but she didn’t move like him, unfamiliar limbs awkward and flailing. Jack recovered and dove after her, tackling her at the waist and slamming her to the floor. She landed on her stomach, pinning his arms beneath her. Jack pulled his arms out, aching from the impact of their combined weight. Ednor turned over and tried to scuttle away, the bracelet clanking against the floor. 

She reached toward the base of the console, hitting a panel. Tools tumbled out, heavy metal things, wrenches, a hammer, Gallifreyan spanners and more delicate tools for finer adjustments. Ednor grabbed the hammer and got up.

Jack sprang to his feet. He whipped off his coat and threw it aside: too much weight and extra fabric hampering his movement.

“Don’t forget,” he said. “You get ten feet from me and no matter what I do, the bracelet will do my work for me,” he said.

“Then I’ll kill you from here, at close range. More fun that way.” Ednor stepped up and swung the hammer. Jack ducked and drove a fist into her solar plexus. She bent at the impact and stepped back. She wasn’t used to this sort of fighting, Jack understood immediately. Height advantage or no, she was inexperienced. He brought up his other fist and took her on her chin as she went, sending her flailing backwards, the hammer flying from her hand and into the TARDIS console with a crash. No sparks emerged.

Ednor lay on her back. Jack stepped over her and crouched down. He braced himself.

“I’m going to ask you this, just for good form. I just want to be clear,” he said. “Will you refrain from using my likeness and Rose’s and the Doctor’s?”

“You might just as soon ask me to stop breathing,” she said thickly, her lip swelling from the blow Jack had inflicted. “Changing shape is my nature. I like my new forms. Their use is my prerogative. I told your Doctor and I’ll tell you: No one is innocent. Anything I might do in these forms is little different from what you’ll do eventually.”

“I don’t think so.” Jack searched her face—the Doctor’s face—for any sign of what Ednor was really thinking or feeling. It was hard to say since he had no guide for how her thoughts would be reflected in the Doctor’s eyes. It was more than a little disconcerting. But he did know one thing.“You seem to have a death wish. What’s that about?”

“It’s not a death wish, Captain Harkness. It’s confidence. I’ve seen so many lives thrown away over superficial appearance, as if surfaces mattered. You’re no different. You’ll try to stop me and fail. Your friends will lose you and I’ll go on, doing what I do.”

Ednor grabbed Jack’s throat one-handed, so quickly that Jack didn’t see it coming. She knocked the breath out of him, and with that moment’s advantage, rolled them over so that he was the one on the floor. She squeezed his larynx, and brought her other hand up to add pressure to her grip.

Jack brought his arms up between hers and slammed them out away from him. He rolled out from under her, and sucked in breath, then punched Ednor in the face. She fell backward awkwardly, windmilling her arms to try to retain her balance but hit the ground hard. She was groggy. When she moved her head, she left a blood smear on the floor.

Jack perched over her, then placed both hands on her neck. “This isn’t a fight I was ever going to lose,” he hissed. “And it’s about so much more than just surfaces.”

And then, he squeezed.

It was only minutes later, when he shut the door of the TARDIS behind him, that he realized how much his body hurt, and that the moisture on his face, this time, was his own tears.

###

The Doctor was waiting for Jack as he entered the TARDIS. He leaned against the console, his arms crossed tightly in front of him. Jack pulled the door shut behind him and walked slowly up the ramp. He looked directly at the Doctor. He'd done what he had to do. He was the only one who could have done it. They all knew it.

He stopped at the top of the ramp. He had to push his way through this. It was the only way they could all move on. He'd killed men before. This was no different.

Except it was. It had been out of love and rage, not out of duty or as the result of an order from a commanding officer.

He put his hands on his hips and waited for the Doctor to speak.

"What have you done, Jack?" the Doctor asked.

Why was he asking? They both knew.

"I took care of it," he said.

"What did you do?"

"I made sure that Ednor will never impersonate you again." Before the Doctor could say more, he asked, "Where's Rose?"

That seemed to catch the Doctor off guard. "I told her to get a room in the city. I didn't want her here for this."

Jack didn't believe for a minute that Rose would leave the Doctor after what he'd been through, but he wasn't going to pursue it, at least not now.

"For what? Are you evicting me?" he said.

The Doctor's eyes seemed to go dark. He unfolded his arms, and gripped the console behind him. "No."

The Doctor launched himself off the console and was at Jack in three strides. He grabbed Jack's arms and looked into his eyes, searching. Jack felt a piercing cold enter his mind like a searchlight, tight and sharp. Vertigo hit and his knees went weak. Like fanning through a deck of cards, Jack's memories of the last few days whipped by, scene by scene--Rose, the Doctor, the market, Ednor, the dying TARDIS, Ednor wearing the Doctor's face. Jack's hands around Ednor's throat.

The sensation dissipated. Jack once more was looking into the Doctor--his Doctor's--eyes. The Doctor steadied him. Had that been the Doctor inside his mind? It must have been. Anger welled inside of him at the invasion, but he was helpless before it; he understood it and he could do nothing about it.

The Doctor leaned in close, pressed his forehead against Jack's. "You stupid ape," the Doctor said, low and intense. His eyes were damp. "You bloody human. Murder isn't an answer."

"It wasn't murder. It was justice," Jack hissed. He tried to break the hold the Doctor had on his arms, but the man's strength was just alien enough that Jack was trapped there. "Ednor stole a part of you. She would have used that part any way she could. She would have destroyed you without a thought, because having another face was convenient. I had the power to do something about that. It was the only way. You know it."

The Doctor broke away from him then, walked back to the console and leaned on it, his back to Jack. Jack followed and stood by his side.

"There must have been another way," the Doctor said, not looking at him.

"Who would have done it? You? No, you have rage, but you're not a killer. Rose? She would have done it. She'd do anything for you. But neither one of us was going to let that happen." He put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder, and pushed the man to face him. "I'm a soldier. This was war. Every war has casualties."

"You killed. For me. It should have been me. I should have done it."

Jack winced at the raw pain in the Doctor's voice, a new grief laid upon the grief he carried with him every single day. Jack's chest tightened at the sound, but he had to make the Doctor see reason.

"Doctor." Jack held the Doctor's arms the way the Doctor had held his, so he couldn't walk away. "You and Rose are my life now. I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

The Doctor didn't say anything for a moment, and Jack knew that he was deliberating. Jack wondered if his own life were in the balance. Finally, the Doctor spoke."You shouldn't have to carry it with you. It's mine. Let me take it from you." The Doctor put his hands on Jack's temples. The touch was sensitive and gentle; that surprised Jack. "I won't come in unless you give permission."

Jack wondered what made this different from just moments before, when no permission had been asked for or granted.

"This is different," the Doctor said, without Jack having said a word.

Jack examined the Doctor's face, his expression. This would be one more grief he'd carry. There had to be a way for Jack to ease it. He'd figure it out. In the meanwhile . . .

"You have my permission," he whispered, his throat tight.

"I won't look at anything you don't want me to see," the Doctor said softly. "Just say no if I go where I'm not wanted."

Jack nodded fractionally. He could already feel a cool presence pushing at his awareness.

"Take a deep breath and let it out slowly," the Doctor advised. "I'll be more careful this time."

Looking into the Doctor's blue eyes--out of fear or the need for reassurance he wasn't sure--Jack inhaled, held it a moment, then exhaled through his parted lips and closed his eyes. That cool intelligence slipped into his mind, and then Jack was falling.

###

Suddenly he was inside himself again, over Ednor, his fingers tightening around her throat--the Doctor's throat. The meat and cartilage and bone beneath his thumbs shifted. She made croaking sounds, her eyes bulging. Her hands clawed at his--he didn't remember that part--as he leaned all his weight into her. Her life finally gave way. The clawing hands went limp. Her eyes went blank, filmed over.

He released his grip, looked at her a moment more, then stood and stepped back from the body, from what he'd done. He looked at his hands, his palms red and hard, the backs of his hands scratched and raw. One wound seeped a line of bright red blood. He sucked it away. Nausea threatened.

Suddenly he was rising, flying up over and away from the scene.

###

He was face to face with the Doctor again, aware of the Doctor's presence inside him. So dark. So tired. Jack reached out, wanting to do nothing but comfort, and found himself falling again, falling into the cool, vast thickness of the Doctor's mind.

He was kneeling. His cheek rested upon a hard edge. His hand felt that hard edge, and he ran his fingers along what he realized was a console edge.The fingers weren't Jack's. The legs were longer, differently proportioned. Jack wasn't inside himself.

He was the Doctor. The Doctor, inside Ednor's stolen, dying TARDIS.

A third presence was with them, a keening silver consciousness speaking in a composition of sound and emotion and color. The words were foreign to Jack's mind, a beautiful, overwhelming musical nonsense that he found he never wanted to stop.

At the same time, the sensory symphony was completely familiar, and completely devastating, filled with anguish, with a searing pain that went on and on for the loss of fingers and limbs and parts so deep inside that they left pulsing, gaping wounds. Some remote part of himself knew that these were metaphors for what Ednor had taken from the TARDIS. Perhaps it was some part of the Doctor. But he was certain that what Ednor had taken could never be replaced. Like removing a liver or kidneys, death wouldn't come all at once; it would come slow and painful and leave a burnt hole in the universe in its wake.

Without words, he asked the TARDIS, "What can I do?"

"Help me go," she responded, in a lament that was a short burst of everlasting harmony in a minor key. "Send me home."

She didn't know. The revelation was an earthquake inside him. She didn't know that Gallifrey was gone, that there was only one other TARDIS in the whole of the universe, of eternity. Ednor had cut her off her connection. By removing the vortex channels, she had separated the TARDIS from its source, placing her in a cage so tight and small that she was being squeezed to death by time and space itself.

Jack's--the Doctor's--legs went out from beneath him and he collapsed to the floor, his back and head resting against the console base. How to usher a TARDIS from life?

And the loneliness. Disconnected from that which sustained her, the TARDIS scrabbled to hang on to the Doctor's presence with ghostly, bleeding hands, the only presence she could feel as a whole, the first company in a lifetime.

This TARDIS had been through the Time War. The Doctor could feel those wounds, could feel the burning alive, the final death of the Time Lord whose home this had been. Could feel the TARDIS screaming for its master, its partner.

"Come to me," he told the TARDIS. "Leave through me, through my love."

The Doctor opened his mind like spreading open the doors of a palace. An electric warmth filled him, the power of ages, too large for him to contain whole. The sumptuous, anguished heart of the TARDIS flowed into him, an Amazonian tide through his mind, his heart, his veins. As she moved, she shed the millennia. She seeped out of his very pores. She was a burning golden heat that engulfed the Doctor, with a singing release that vibrated every part of him. Her presence finally dwindled in her physical structure when, with one glorious burst, she freed the last of herself through the Doctor into the corridors and chambers of eternity.

Jack felt himself dissipate into darkness, cold and black and all consuming.

###

When Jack opened his eyes, it took a moment for him to connect his consciousness with his body. The Doctor caught him, kept him standing. The Doctor's face glistened. Jack's own face felt tight and it hurt, as though he'd been frowning for hours, his mouth spread in some rictus of grief. Maybe it had been. And it was wet. His eyes were sore with tears.

The Doctor examined him, clear-eyed and sober.

"Are you all right?" he asked Jack

.Jack couldn't answer. He wasn't sure.

He nodded out of habit, two small motions.

"Bollocks. Come on," the Doctor said. He put his arms under Jack's shoulders and helped him over to the TARDIS jump seat. The rest was a relief. The Doctor started to rise, and Jack grabbed his hand."Stay," he managed to say.The Doctor hesitated then sat again, searching his face.

"I'm sorry," Jack said. "I don't know--did it help? My . . . being there?"

The Doctor's face showed the grief that Jack had come to know so well. And something else . . . was it hope? Was it gratitude? Jack couldn't be sure, but knew that now, in this moment, the Doctor was more fragile than Jack had ever seen him. He didn't move a muscle, but held the Doctor's gaze, hoping he could see the depth of his feeling.

The Doctor paused, then suddenly wrapped his arms around Jack in a crushing embrace. He buried his face in Jack's neck, and though he was quiet, Jack felt sobs wrack his body, sending tremors through them both. Jack held the Doctor as he wept.

Jack understood now why the Doctor had sent Rose away. This was between the two of them. It exposed too much of the private bond between them to share with her. They each knew war and death in a way that Rose never could, in a way neither of them wanted her to. Her freshness, her spirit, was what kept them both focused on the best parts of themselves. Maybe she saw these things on her own; she was smart enough, perceptive enough. But she also knew when to step back. That's when Jack realized that her absence was as much her choice as it was the Doctor's.

When the Doctor's sobs diminished, his embrace loosened. He pulled back, scrubbed his face with his hands. He left no evidence of tears there, just red sunken eyes, but eyes released from pain--not lightened, but relaxed somehow. A weight lifted.The Doctor got up then, stepped away, went to the console, fiddled with a control. Jack knew a retreat when he saw it. He stayed on the jump seat a moment, partly to give the Doctor space, partly to gather his own strength. He had to make sure there was closure here, not the macho manliness of silent, sudden conclusion but a real emotional completeness. Rose would know if something was left unsaid or undone when she came back. Jack didn't want that. She wasn't part of this.

With a deep breath, Jack rose from the jump seat and went to the Doctor, who was looking at the indecipherable circles whirling on the screen before him. The screen bathed his face in a pale blue light. Jack put his hand on the Doctor's shoulder.

"Doctor," he said.

The Doctor's whole body tensed; Jack could feel it through the leather jacket. The Doctor looked down a moment, as though acceding that the conversation wasn't finished, then stood straight to face Jack.

"You're welcome," Jack said quietly.

The Doctor's mouth twitched. He wasn't going to say anything, Jack knew. He was back to his reticent mode, that place he went when the emotion was too high for him to speak, warm but remote.

But then, he surprised Jack. "Thank you," he said. He put one long arm around Jack and pulled him close again. Jack felt the Doctor’s other hand on his neck, in his hair. It was an embrace full of heart and gratitude and love. He pulled back enough to lean his forehead against Jack's again. "Thank you," he whispered.

"You're welcome," Jack said, his voice quiet and husky. "Always."

They stayed there that way for a moment, Jack savoring the scent and the heat of the Doctor so close. Something final passed between them, something that was theirs alone. Jack inhaled it and let it fill him. He released it, and it surrounded them both.

He felt it just a moment before it happened. Energy infused the Doctor. He sprang back.

"Now then," he said, his eyes suddenly alight. "I'm famished. We were supposed to have dinner, what, two days ago? We need to find Rose." He headed toward the TARDIS door.

Jack watched him practically bounce away. He laughed. Of course. Business done, time to move on.

He hesitated just a second or two to look at the Doctor, to take him in one more time before Rose returned and their dynamic changed again.

The Doctor opened the TARDIS door and looked back at Jack with an enormous, hopeful grin. What a treasure, Jack thought. One more treasure of lost Gallifrey. Not mine, but close enough.

He grinned and headed toward the door.


End file.
